This Stylish Tiny House Was Once an Old One-Car Garage

If you have an old garage or workshop sitting unused in your backyard, you may want to consider transforming it into a cozy tiny home.

Seattle resident Michelle de la Vega decided to transform her boring one-car garage into a cool custom-designed 250-square-foot home. According to The New York Times, de la Vega was able to accomplish her goal of transforming the space into an awesome retreat for just $32,000.

Michelle de la Vega

After going through a divorce settlement, de la Vega bought the property and its dilapidated garage for $208,000. She decided to renovated the garage into a living space and rent out the main residence to create an income.

“At that time I was coming out of the ashes,” she explained, “and knew I needed to come up with a good survival strategy for starting over as a single person.”

To save money, she became her own contractor and invested all of her time in making the space both functional and comfortable.

Michelle de la Vega

De la Vega opted to save money by using salvaged materials for the interior of the home. The ladder that leads up to her sleeping loft was taken from an old ship, while the metal lockers that act as her closets were once sued in an aircraft maintenance building.

“The garage and the elements in it are all defunct, unwanted things that were reclaimed and given new life,” she says. “Given where I was coming from, building it was a deeply redemptive experience.”

Although the project is now completed, she is still constantly adding new design elements and changing up the decor. “It would be tragic to think of it as actually being done.”